Thoughts Brought on by Visiting a Maccabee Grave (including some thoughts from the Observant Life)

Last summer I was walking with Jemma and Charlie through the Rechavia neighborhood in Jerusalem where my brother lives.  It was a leisurely stroll on a hot summer's night.  My brother asked, "Would you like to see a Macabee grave?"  And of course the answer was, "yes."  We didn't travel into an open clearing outside of Jerusalem.  Instead, we continued on a sidewalk that crossed the yard of a lovely home, walked down a set of cement steps that took us to the bottom of a hill and saw piece of antiquity jutting out in- between two houses.  Indeed it was a grave of one of the Macabees!

All of a sudden, Chanukah was not just a "fairy tale" story about a miracle concerning oil, but a part of the eternal story of the Jewish link to the land of Israel.  When the Macabees fought the Syrian Greeks, they did so because  they wanted religious freedom to be able to maintain their ways of worshiping and to have Jewish sovereignty over the Temple.  The Macabees were traditionalists, dedicated to making sure that assimilation did not destroy the Jewish community of that day and age.  In some ways, the battle was not just against the Syrian Greeks, it was against those Jews who chose Hellenism over Judaism, who were less zealous about the preservation of Jewish law.

Odd, those same kinds of internal conflicts still rage within Judaism today.  Although we talk about being one people, the fear that assimilation might be the demise of Judaism or at the very least the weakening of Judaism, is still a major fear for those who are committed to trying to maintain a strong core.  Is it enough to be good people as Jews, or need we try to be concerned with maintaining our specific identity through the customs, traditions, folkways, and rituals of Judaism.  How essential is it to use halacha as a roadmap to help us negotiate our way in life?  What if most of the people around us do not view it as essential to show loyalty to Jewish law, does that mean that halacha, the  "code of Jewish living that represents the will of G-d as codified by our rabbis and ultimately adopted and shaped by the Jewish people over the course of 4,000 years,"  is somehow irrelevant now?

As we enter this Chanukah period, I think it is productive to think about the fact that this shul  has sustained a major segment of the  Jewish community here in Lincoln for 100 years.  This congregation has found ways to adapt to "modern times" but has also had an emphasis on conserving Jewish ritual and ethical life, on distinguishing ourselves from our neighbors while encouraging us to understand how we fit into the larger secular world.  As Conservative Jews we do not look at the "real" world as if we have to "invent" G-d, but as a place to search for G-d as we strive to incorporate Jewish practices and Jewish law into our lives.  Conservative Judaism "has the deeply held conviction that halacha is a valid framework for the infusion of holiness into daily life."  (The Observant Life) That has been the stance of this congregation for the past 100 years, even though it also understands that the goal is not necessarily where you are  personally ...but that the journey i along the path is noble.

Chanukah is by its very nature a holiday of light and hope.  It took the courage of the Macabees long ago to stand up and say that assimilation to the point of rejecting Jewish observance was unacceptable.  May we continue their struggle with the hope that others will not only find the joy of traveling this path, but also the meaningful nature of doing so.